Root cause
A root cause is an initiating cause of either a condition or a causal chain that leads to an outcome or effect of interest. The term denotes the earliest, most basic, 'deepest', cause for a given behavior; most often a fault. The idea is that you can only see an error by its manifest signs. Those signs can be widespread, multitudinous, and convoluted, whereas the root cause leading to them often is a lot simpler.
A "root cause" is a "cause" that is "root".
The term "root cause" appeared in professional journals as early as 1905.
Fantin describes the root cause as the result of the drill-down root cause analysis required to discover which is the process that is failing, defining it as "MIN Process".
For example, projects may fail due to unrealistic expectations.
